Video transcript below
Welcome to Video Five in the Beatitude series. Now, this beatitude is very exciting because it is the thing that’s going to sustain the first three in a big way.
So the first three beatitudes we’ve learned about, center around how to become number one completely dependent upon God, right? We talked about, poor in spirit. And number two was how to mourn over sin, right? Which is to develop a strong aversion to sin. And number three was to have our will submitted to God so his power would flow through us, right? All of these things being a foundation for having this abundant life that Jesus talked about in John Chapter 10:10, that he said he came to give us.
So, we’re going to keep asking ourselves this question, is your life characterized by the kind of abundance that you think Jesus was talking about? And if not, I would challenge you to start applying these beatitudes in your life. I’ve been doing it, and I’m going to tell you, I’ve never, ever seen anything so condensed and so effective.
Anything I’ve ever studied in the Bible, that’s so like, here’s the list. Jesus said, here’s the list of things that you need to be doing in order to understand the abundant life today as you walk as my representatives of my kingdom.
So let’s dig into number four, and let’s read the scripture, Matthew 5:6. It says,
“blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
So when we’re talking about the first three, right? Being dependent upon God, having a strong aversion for sin, having our will submitted to God so that we have his power throat flow, sorry flowing through us, it’s Monday, I am having a hard time here. In my words, how are those things sustainable? How is it sustainable to maintain that kind of attitude, those attitudes, Christ-like attitudes in a world where we are constantly bombarded by the influences to act in just the opposite way, right? We’re constantly encouraged to live independent from God. We are constantly encouraged to engage in sin. We are constantly encouraged to not submit to God, but to live with the bit in our own mouth going our own way, right?
Well, this is, so what’s so, I think so brilliant about this next beatitude is like Jesus is saying, Hey, here’s how you can’t anchor these, these attitudes in your own life. Here’s how you can make these a possible new groove in your brain, a new Way of thinking, a new way of acting, a new way of looking at life through a spiritual lens. Because our culture constantly pressures us to hunger and thirst over everything, after everything except what is right by God’s standard. We are not influenced by this world to be Christlike.
So what is it that will anchor us?
When Jesus was teaching us about, especially about pride, he said that God gives grace to the humble and resists the proud, right? So I want you to think about something for just a minute.When we think about righteousness in the Bible, that kind of in my mind kind of conjures up, oh, I’ve got to live like a holier than thou, or I’ve got to live without having fun. I’ve got to live by God’s standard, which is really boring, means my life will not be exciting or I won’t be able to do what I want to do. I’ll have to do, you know, the whole missionary act or whatever, you know, I don’t know about you, but the idea of living in righteous by righteous, a righteous standard does not appeal to my flesh, okay? And it never will be.
We have talked about this in our human design concept, how that we have a body and soul and a spirit. And the part of us that’s born again when Jesus Christ saves us is our soul and our spirit. It’s not our body. Our body will always want what it wants. It will always want creature comforts. It will always want its own way, right? And then you add to that the enemies of the devil and the world culture, which also is under the influence of Satan, you are going to get constant back, backlash, pushback, whatever you want to call it, against living righteously. It’s kind of like our devotional on letting the world define God, when we believe God, who God is based on the enemy’s definition of God, we’ll never want to get to know him. And so it’s the same thing.
God has rules because those rules are to benefit us. And he has the right to make the rules. And think about it. He bought your salvation. You’re one of his, you know, it’s kinda like joining the army. When you join the Army or the Marine Corps, guess what? You belong to that organization. They get to make the rules. If they say your hair will be cut a certain way, then you’re going to cut your hair that way. If they say you’re going to be up at 5:00 AM doing pushups, that’s what you’re going to do there. It totally makes sense that God would have rules. The problem is we don’t think God should have rules, but we have rules. I have rules from my house. You come to my house, you take your shoes off. And guess what? If you wear shoes in my house with dog poop on ’em, or you think it’s okay to pee in the corner, you’re not coming back. And so what, why would we think that we can have our rules, but God shouldn’t be allowed to have to make rules for our lives?
When he gave his life, Jesus paid the ultimate price for us. So we, we like to, again, I want to hammer this home because it makes sense. It makes sense. And you know, the other thing is when Christ saved us and he made our soul and spirit righteous, right through the gift of salvation, we are what the Bible calls newborn babes. We are babies in Christ. We have to grow, right? And when we’re born again, we naturally hunger and thirst for things that are Christ-Like we want to be filled with righteousness, just like newborn babies. They want to drink milk. They don’t want to drink poison or things that taste bad, right? They may do it unwittingly because they don’t know any better, but they have a natural aversion for that. By the same token, their parents need to protect them and make sure they’re drinking and eating things that are healthy, right? That’s what discipleship is about. That’s what these videos are about, is teaching Christians how to do things that make them healthy, okay?
And so, to hunger and to thirst after righteousness is to fill your spirit and soul with those, that good food, those good vitamins, that nourishment that is needed to grow into a strong Christian is to reinforce all the things that will make you into a healthy warrior for Christ. We cannot be healthy Christians if we’re stuffing the garbage of this world into our lives. We cannot grow our soul and spirit cannot grow on unrighteousness. And so we have to, and I’ll tell you, just take a minute and read Galatians 5. Galatians 5 has this contrast between people who live after the flesh. In other words, after the rules of the world and versus people who live after the spirit. If you’ve read those that contrasting, group of verses, you’ll see that people who live after the flesh, even born again, people who decide it’s okay to live after the flesh, in other words, after their own rules, they’re miserable, it’s dangerous, they’re anxiety ridden. And they’re just spiraling back to the slavery, which Christ freed us from, I’ve been there, I’ve done it. I know it’s horrible. But those who choose to live after God’s righteous standard produce the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, right? All the things that everybody wants.
And so the Bible’s very clear, we have choices, right?
We have choices to live either after righteousness or after our flesh. And our own rules. The Bible says, though, in Romans 6, it says that our old man was crucified with Christ and the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves of sin for he who has died. In other words, his old man died with Christ, right? Has been freed from sin. Therefore, don’t let sin reign in your body that you should obey it and it’s lust. Don’t present your body as an instrument of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourself to God as being alive from the dead and present yourself as an instrument of righteousness to God for sin shall not have dominion over you. And this is what we don’t understand. We don’t have to live under the dominion and slavery of sin anymore once we are born again.
So why would we go back to that?
Well, we go back to that because it’s what we’re used to. It’s because we have never been trained to hunger and thirst after righteousness. See, what hungering and thirsting after righteousness does, is it fills us in a way that we’re not used to being filled. It satisfies us in the way that we’re not used to being satisfied, and we have to develop these new tastes. Right? You know, we’re so used to living in anxiety. We’re so used to living in turmoil. We’re so used to living in fear and worry that to taste an anxiety free existence, a peaceful existence is almost foreign if you’ve lived that way for 20, 34 years. Right? But once you start experiencing it through living in God’s righteous ways as a born again person, and you start experiencing God’s presence, guess what? It becomes your greatest addiction. It’s the only healthy addiction you’ll ever have is God’s presence. And it’s only just like, you’re not going to come to my house with poop on your shoes. Right? We are not going to live in God’s presence unless we are willing to subjugate our life to his righteousness.
You know, the Bible makes it so clear. He said, Isaiah 32:16 says,
“the work of righteousness is peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever.”
You want peace as a born again believer. Then start figuring out what are God’s rules and start living by them. We know the first and great commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind. You know, every morning I get up and I say, Lord, this law practice is yours. My house is yours. My money is yours. My time is yours. Because none of that stuff is mine. It’s all yours. There you go. That’s loving the Lord. And saying, I don’t have anything without you. Right? This is what I’ve been learning. I’m telling you it’s very exciting because, when we realized that all the assets we have, time, money, resources are gods, guess what? All the trouble is his too. And that gives us peace. Because we know he’s got to handle it all.
Psalm 16:11 says,
“you will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand. Our pleasures forevermore.”
See, living in God’s righteousness is not about denying ourselves pleasure. It’s about discovering the deepest delight and satisfaction created by God who is the creator of all the things. We enjoy His presence. He’s the fountain of it. See? And when we live righteously, we start becoming sustained in a way that is satisfying. Our life becomes satisfied.
When Jesus said, you will be filled. It’s like what He was telling the woman of the well saying, I have water, that when you drink it, you’re never going to be thirsty again. Right? And when we know Jesus is our greatest need, he also becomes our greatest desire. And our desire for righteousness isn’t satisfied by one sermon, by one devotional, by one super national supernatural, sorry, encounter with the Holy Spirit. Just like physical hunger and thirst is ongoing. So is spiritual hunger and thirst.
Our need for spiritual nutrition is so profound. It’s very natural. It’s actually when you are spiritually hungry, when you hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God, it is a sign that you are spiritually alive. If you are not hungering and thirsting after the righteousness of Christ, it may be an indication that you are not born again. And you need to check that if you’re spiritually dead, you won’t hunger and thirst after righteousness.
And my friend, every person watching this video, I want you to know that you were born again. If your hunger is after, so power and success and money, comfort, happiness, beauty, everything, please do a soul search. Please do a soul search. You were created for so much more than the things that you cannot take with you. Jesus promised to fill us, to completely satisfy us. And when we hunger and thirst after his righteousness, it’s very, it’s remarkable. It’s also very curious because it always satisfies us, but always keeps us longing for more of him. And I always say, Jesus is the only addiction. His presence is the only addiction that won’t hurt you. It’s the only one.
And so, wow, can you believe this is how this is building? So far we have learned so much about how to obtain an abundant life. And tomorrow, or not tomorrow, but the next video, we will talk about how to progress further in this pursuit of an abundant life. I hope you’ll join us.
